Gao Brothers
news

'Glocal' Participation
& Collaborative Aesthetics

Presentations and discussion on the collaborative turn in art, and associated themes, as expressed through two projects, ‘The Utopia of the 20 Minutes’ Embrace’ by the Chinese artists the Gao Brothers; and ‘Field of Vision’ by the German artist, Stephan Hausmeister, at the Institute of New Media, Frankfurt.

FRIDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2007 AT 18:00 HOURS

‘The Utopia of the 20 Minutes’ Embrace’ by the Chinese artists the Gao Brothers, and ‘Field of Vision’ by the German artist, Stephan Hausmeister, are two distinctive projects. The first is a performance work that will receive its German premiere on the 11th September in the centre of Berlin below the Brandenburger Tor, symbolic site of successive attempts to construct and inculcate various versions of German ‘national’ identity and belonging. The second is a serial artwork that orchestrates encounters between loosely knit on-line groups and gallery audiences at specific locations around the world, and which will launch its new web interface (developed with the assistance of the INM) at this event.

These two ostensibly different works nonetheless correspond in their exploration of similar aesthetic topographies... both seek to disengage from the dominance of the creative author, yet without entirely dispensing with this model; both investigate creative expression as a process based upon the contingent (and sometimes conflicted and contradictory) resources of collaboration and participation; and both examine the tensions between local, national and global publics… Finally, both projects were brought into association through the collaborative impetus of the Internet.

You are invited to the Institute of New Media for a series of informal presentations exploring these and related themes in the context of these two projects. Malcolm Ferris, independent curator and researcher, will set the scene with a critical introduction to both the Gao’s ‘Utopia of the Twenty Minutes Hug’ and Stephan Hausmeister’s ‘Field of Vision’. The Gao’s and Stephan will then respond with short commentaries on their respective projects before turning to the audience for questions and further discussion.

Please join us for what we hope will be a stimulating evening of discussions on these two contemporary projects in the context of recent local-global debates in the arts and culture.